Overview of Paper 1: Representative Bill Flores is meeting with a high school cl
Overview of Paper 1: Representative Bill Flores is meeting with a high school class in Waco to talk about science. He needs a short and sweet descriiption of “The evidence for dark matter.” He has asked his Chief of Staff to help him prepare for his presentation.
The Assignment: You are working in the Chief of Staff’s office as a summer intern. The Representative is going to a hearing from a prominent cosmologist later and wants to know basic information about Dark Matter beforehand. Because you have taken a course that discusses this question, you are tasked with this assignment. Your job is to create a “short and sweet” paper that summarizes and explains the reasons/evidence for dark matter in plain language so that both the Chief of Staff and the representative can understand them. Said differently, based on your report, both need to be able to answer this important question quickly and intelligently.
Big Picture of how your paper should be organized (Note: This portion is identical for all assignments):
• Your document needs to include the important pieces of evidence, follow the above and below instructions about what structure it needs to be in as well as include the things we are explicitly requiring for this paper (see below). You will be graded on your ability to do it all.
• Your introduction must make it clear what it is really about (in this case providing the evidence for dark matter), mention the evidence/talking points to be discussed as well as outline the argument that will be used in the paper.
• The paper must be clear and concise, with a proper essay format. It should be between 400-750 words, although you are allowed to make it longer, more is unlikely to be short and sweet. While it needs to touch on the major “big picture” issues and use plain language, it obviously can’t go into too much detail on any one topic.
• It must have proper paragraph structure including topic sentences for each paragraph.
• Use only language that can be understood by a lay-person who has NOT taken the class (no buzz words!).
• It must be easy to read.
• You may choose the number of pieces of evidence (and number of evidence/talking point paragraphs), but this is NOT an independent research project. You are to use only evidence explained in this chapter( https://he.kendallhunt.com/sites/default/files/heupload/pdfs/Toback_1e_Ch6.pdf). You should not assume you need to have three and only three pieces of evidence nor do you need three and only three evidence paragraphs. While you may choose your number of evidence paragraphs, the typical writer will choose one paragraph per piece of evidence. Additional paragraphs may be used to explain any physics concepts that are required to understand the evidence as long as you stay on-topic.
• It must also have a conclusion paragraph that ties the pieces of evidence/talking points together and wraps up the argument. It should be like the closing argument from a lawyer. If you just restate the evidence, that isn’t a conclusion/summary arugement.
Some additional comments particular to this assignment (including some, but not all, of what you WILL need to do in the paper):
• If you are going to use words or phrases like “dark matter” you need to explain them clearly.
• You need to clearly describe some of the aspects of gravity and how objects orbit around each other due to the attraction of gravity. Note: This is NOT a paper about the difference between Newton and Einstein, or their theories. This is not about a proof of General Relativity. It is about Dark Matter and the evidence for it. You may assume that General Relativity is correct, but you cannot assume that your reader knows anything about it. You do not need to use the phrase General Relativity explicitly.
• Since this is NOT a paper about Einstein’s version of gravity vs. Newton’s, nor the history, neither a descriiption of the people or history are needed. Indeed they should be avoided as they will take away from the “short and sweet” nature of the paper and the main point, which is about evidence for dark matter.
• You need to clearly describe how planets orbit the Sun as evidence for our understanding of gravity.
• You need to clearly describe how stars orbit in the outer reaches of galaxies and how this provides evidence.
• You need to clearly describe how the lensing of galaxies provides evidence.
• While you may choose your number of body paragraphs, the typical writer will choose one paragraph per piece of evidence; you could also include a setup paragraph explaining any physics that will be relevant to later evidence paragraphs.
• Note: The above is not THE evidence, but is part of what you need to help describe the evidence. Said differently, if you do NOT have those things, you have not provided the evidence